Hard work = $250,000 ?
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| Fri, 10-24-2008 - 9:07am |
I’ve read repeatedly that the $250,000 is hard earned money that the government has no right to tax. Personally, I don’t believe that hard work consistently results in high salaries and I’m not convinced that people who make more money work harder or deserve more than most people. Most people, I believe, do work hard and most people are rewarded with 25,000 – 45,000 salary. Not all some hard workers make more and some make less. What do you think? Is the Just World view valid?
http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/beliefs7csend.pdf
most people have a strong need to believe that they live in a world that is just, in the sense that people generally get what they deserve, and deserve what they get. When confronted with data that contradicts this view they try hard to ignore, reinterpret, distort, or forget it —for instance by finding imaginary merits to the recipients of fortuitous rewards, or assigning blame to innocent victims.
Because of their imperfect willpower, individuals constantly strive to motivate themselves (or their children) towards effort, educational investment, perseverance in the face of adversity, and away from the slippery slope of idleness, welfare dependency, crime, drugs, etc. This is another recurrent finding from the sociological evidence. In such circumstances, maintaining somewhat rosy beliefs about the fact that everyone will ultimately get their “just deserts” can be very valuable. Furthermore, if enough individuals end up with the view that economic success is highly dependent on effort, they will ultimately represent a pivotal voting block, and set a low tax rate. Conversely, when individuals anticipate that society will carry out little redistribution, the costs of a deficient motivation to effort or savings are much higher than with high taxes and
a generous safety net. Each individual thus has greater incentives to maintain his belief that effort ultimately pays, and consequently more voters end up with such a world view.
For instance, data from the World Values Survey shows that only 29% of Americans believe that the poor are trapped in poverty, and only 30% that luck, rather than effort or education, determines income. The figures for Europeans are nearly double: 60% and 54% respectively. Similarly, Americans are more than twice as likely as Europeans to think that the poor are lazy (60% versus 26%).
Indeed, 59% of Americans agree or strongly agree that “in the long run, hard work usually brings a better life”; this view commands much less support in Europe, ranging from 34% in Sweden to 43% in Germany.
Is the “American dream,” according to our theory, just a self-sustaining collective illusion?


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Efficient and pleasant waitresses will never make $250K though. I get the value system, just don't tell me a stock broker works harder than me. I am also a college student so both my "brawn" and "brain" side get their work out. I would rather think hard than work hard anyday.
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It sounds like you're proposing eugenics as a solution for economic problems?
>>eu⋅gen⋅ics
the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).<<
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics
Edited 10/29/2008 8:55 am ET by nisupulla
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Yes, but probably not in the way you mean. I'm talking about the poor planning (or perhaps downright criminal conniving) of our elected leaders that stacks the deck against the ordinary wage earner: the outsourcing of technical jobs, the granting of tax breaks to big box stores to enable the destruction of small town economies, to begin. I did plan ahead: instead of become a professional musician, I studied physics and computer sciences so that I'd always have a "day job". So I have, but not always in my "fields", and not always at the salaries that my skills were worth before the pyramid schemers told our government that there was a "shortage" of such people, something needed to be done about it quick before "American innovation" suffered, we'd better import people with those skills from India, and outsource technical jobs immediately. Have you ever heard the hysteria about the dire shortage of scientists and engineers? It's been going on since the early eighties at least.
And no, I'm not particularly uneducated or a poor planner. (I do homeschool two of my children, partly because the education system has become the scapegoat for our failed economic policies, and frankly the schools are being ordered to "teach" in a way that deadens the intellect and kills initiative.)
>>Unless you consider something like maintaining good health as "lucky". <<
Yes, having good health is one aspect of lucky. It's even luckier when your parents were heatlhy, your siblings are healthy, your children are healthy.
Yes, knowing the right people is another aspect of lucky.
Of course the right experiences lead to more wealth, but the lucky part is gaining the opportunity to access those experiences.
>>I was also talking about the working for Years, months, generations to get to that point. I think you missed that.<<
Why does it strike me as totally unAmerican to suggest that people deserve their inherited wealth. Am I alone in that?
What I meant was that George W. isn't in the top 5% on intelligence and he may have gone to an Ivy League school, but he didn't do all that well and he doesn't have an advanced degree.
So he is a well known example of a person who is neither very bright nor well educated, but brings in more than 250. So intelligence and education are not necessary factors.
>>Believe it or not, there are people who make that amount who are making sacrifices to be able to put money in savings and pay college tuition.<<
You are right. I do find it hard to believe.
It seems as if you are saying that given the choice, if both opportunities were paid equally, the average person would choose to flip burgers than to be paid for innovation and creativity.
I don't buy it. In fact, I'd bet that the vast majority would not pick the burger flipping.
>>if you don't know what it's like to be in a position that requires the amount of responsibility and liability that they have as medical providers, then please don't lecture me that they don't work harder than any others.<<
But I do, so I get to, right?
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